I paid for my ‘18 in full. I’m up in age now, senior citizen status so don’t wheel as much as I did in my youth. But my T4R has plenty of skid plate dents and scrapes, as well as paint pinstriping.

In June, 2002, I lived in the eastern Sierra Nevada region of east central California. The eastern Sierra, Death Valley, west and central Nevada were my playground. I bought a ‘02 Tacoma TRD 4x4 SR5 Xtracab. I paid it off in just less than two years. Of course, the truck was far cheaper - just over $22,000 brand new. I didn’t abuse it, I didn’t baby it. It got used over a lot of 5-6 trails on your scale, as well as some short 7-8 sections. The rear locker was used a lot. The skid plates took what they were built for, I tore up the OEM BFG Rugged Trail T/A tires (to their credit, they were sliced and diced but held air with no flats) and had replaced with BFG All Terrain T/A’s. I had one fairly good rocker panel dent under the passenger door (it was on the bottom so wasn’t very noticeable), and I backed hard into a small pine tree on a rocky, soft and loose hill climb and partially climbed it, denting the rear bumper.

When I bought my T4R I gave the Tacoma to my son, my grandson is learning to drive. The truck is still going strong, on its original clutch, looks good and nothing has ever broken and 210k miles.



I climbed this section so I could turn around and take this photo. I was doing a prerun of the trail after flashflooding for friends who conducted 4x4 tours. I’ve taken this trail many times over the years.



The road and creek were one for a third mile when this photo was taken. The following summer a cloudburst destroyed the area and the road was rerouted.

This is where I am with mine. I'm not smashing it off of boulders, but we do 6/10 trails pretty regularly. 4Runners aren't cheap, but the climate near Phoenix is pretty extreme, so the peace of mind of something reliable when we are out on one is worth it. Get up close to Amos and you'll see the pin stripes and paint flaws that go along with being used.

I bought my 4Runner outright, to use on 4wd trails. That said, I'm not into body damage and parts breakage, I had my fill of that in the days before cellphones. Breaking down in the middle of nowhere sucks.

It does fine on the 4wd trails I want to take it on.